


A world void of warmth

by Satellite_Of_Love



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Aliens have taken over the world, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Ghostbusters Fusion, Angst, Found Family, Happy Ending, Jongin is Chaenbaek's son, Kai is a literal baby, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Photographer Park Chanyeol, Some Fluff, Strangers to Lovers, killing monsters, some gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:09:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27871317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satellite_Of_Love/pseuds/Satellite_Of_Love
Summary: Baekhyun and Chanyeol have fun in a ghostbusters sorta job. Except that it isn't fun and they are the only two humans left alive.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	A world void of warmth

**i: A particularly hot day**

  
  
  


Chanyeol meets Baekhyun when they are both nineteen. Chanyeol is covered in what looks like green slime and Baekhyun is covered in sweat.

There hadn’t been a day as warm as this one in years. The _Oegyein_ exude pestilence and the air around them turns into ice as they ignore Chanyeol when he walks past the streets that no longer belong to him. They don’t sweat, their skin doesn’t lit up in the presence of an accidental rub and they are unable to express the utter dread that the boy in front of him is translating with his eyes.They never tremble in a corner, hugging their legs and whispering in the search of salvation.

If he focuses he is almost able to hear the sound of a human heart throbbing against a ribcage. His job has made focusing a vital part of his being, so he does hear it. He does or at least he imagines it. That is enough.

Wiping the muddy mucus off his hand, Chanyeol decides to take a rest. Today, he is not the grim reaper, nor the exterminator that he has been forced into becoming. Today, he is the source of light and heath that allows someone to live. The spark needed to keep the warmth safe.

After a few weeks, Baekhyun starts growing angry over the excessive protection Chanyeol exerts on him. Why can’t he go out alone? He has been surviving on his own for the last eight years, he knows his way around the town. 

_Yeah, and it almost got you killed._

One day Baekhyun becomes desperate to the point of throwing things to the wall and screaming in rage. He is tired and feels like a prisoner and only wishes to get out. _A prisoner_ , Chanyeol wonders, _is that how I make you feel?_

It’s easier lying to himself than to Baekhyun when he asks him _why do you force me to live with you?_ The answer is a simple one, the same words he has been replying again and again; _you are going to yourself get killed out there_. But once the seed of doubt is planted, Chanyeol feels bad enough to wonder if he has been too greedy with the warmth he has found.

He lets him go and one week later Baekhyun comes back. They set new rules and start treating each other as equals. Baekhyun stops being simple warmth and becomes a person in the eyes of Chanyeol.

  
  
  


**v: The day in which it all comes down to this**

  
  
  


Chanyeol and Baekhyun have a wide range of things in common. If someone were to ask them which one is the most important, they wouldn’t hesitate. _We are both humans,_ and in these circumstances it is more than enough.

  
  
  
  


‘’It all comes down to this,’’ Baekhyun says through gritted teeth, one hand up as he salutes the crowd with the fakest smile he has ever put.

Jongin is standing next to them, grabbing Baekhyun’s leg and peeking from time to time with eyes as big as his father’s. To their luck, they don’t have to put the word _horror_ in their explanation, they can say _he is a very shy kid,_ and even though the Oegyein can’t even begin to sympathize with their culture, they will clap around them and pretend they _love_ to understand human culture. Jongin doesn’t want to be here, but his presence is what is keeping them all alive. What a twist given that once they thought that having him was going to be their damnation.

There’s no need for Baekhyun to whisper, they are surrounded by politicians, not by the alien version of what once were anthropologists. They barely speak a human language and the chances of them understanding their whispering are close to none. Still, Chanyeol can’t help to feel his stomach relaxing. He is glad his boyfriend is being cautious.

Warmth. The nerves from the tip of his fingers react to the soft surface of Baekhyun’s cheek, then his knuckles have the pleasure to feel the scar that sparks memories only theirs to share. Theirs, unlike the rest of their lives, displayed for the public to gaze and judge on.

A stroke, that’s it. Nor the aliens or the other monsters that have taken over the world enjoy signs of affection, they are almost forbidden. The soft touch feels like an act of rebellion even in the middle of the huge concessions they have been forced to make in order to stay alive. It is a small resistance to the colonization of their planet.

It is sad. Tragic.

One of the politicians explains how humans used to mate and construct monogamous relationships. Their understanding is so limited that they believe Jongin to be their biological son.

Baekhyun is crying in what he tries to cover as being emotional and grateful. Chanyeol knows when his expressions are real and when they aren’t. This is not because he has been living with him for the past ten years, it is simply because as a human he has learnt to read facial expressions in order to communicate. 

The Oegyein don’t have faces and therefore have no need to learn to understand how a face works. They don’t need to know about the etiquette of human culture that lives only through the legacy of the three of them. The only use this human family has is when it comes to killing (maintaining the repressive apparatus, Baekhyun would say) ot to political purposes (part of the ideological apparatus, his boyfriend would add).

  
  
  
  


‘’What do you mean ‘ _It all comes down to this’?’’_ Chanyeol asks once they are granted a minute of solitude as they take Jongin to what once was a public restroom. He is helping Baekhyun with what is supposed to be a tie but doesn’t really look like one. The Oegyein were so adamant about them using _traditional clothing_ , but they know nothing about what a human would actually wear, much less a human male from South Korea.

‘’Is this what you really want? To be parade like animals for the rest of our lives?’’ Baekhyun explains

‘’You were the one that got us here. You got the king convinced that it was worth to keep us alive.’’

‘’Is this what you want for Jongin? He is already so detached from real life…’’

‘’This is real life now.’’

‘’He will grow up with so many problems.’’

‘’At least he will grow up. You wanted- no, _needed_ him alive. That’s what you said and that’s what I am giving you.’’

A kiss as a call for silence. Warmth against his lips and his tongue and his arms and Baekhyun’s musky essence filling up his senses. They used to be so desperate when they didn’t know what day was going to be their last. Now they have eternity in front of them.

_If only it was an eternity worth living_ , Chanyeol thinks.

  
  
  


**iii The day love surrounded them and yet they chose to say nothing : The consummation**

  
  
  


It used to be like this. Long days of hunting. Living on the edge of death. Dirty trails of bloody tears that didn’t ever leave their faces. Half-deaf with the sound of triggers repeating in their head all day long. _Bang, bang, bang._ Virtually no sleeping and a new scar every day.

A few spirits, gwishin, even an Imugi that wasn’t even doing anything bad.

Most of it are simply Oegyein. They can’t kill each other, they need Chanyeol to kill them. 

Baekhyun is also good, too good. He shoots, he slashes, he makes them explode without a second of doubt. He laughs while he cries and screams and is more satisfied with his job than Chanyeol will ever be.

It isn’t surprising, after all his friend has been caught by the horrors of having your family slaughtered in front of you. Chanyeol doesn’t remember what happened, his story involves a hit in the head turned trauma that erased most of his memories. He can imagine that if he remembered he would be as scarred as Baekhyun is. 

But that’s not true: Chanyeol does remember. He remembers humanity, with its flaws, injustice and inequality and misses it and feels sick at how fucked up everything was and at how fucked up everything is now. He keeps resentment even if he would love to pretend that his relationship with the aliens is okay and mutually fulfilling.

  
  
  
  


With eyes reflecting flames, Baekhyun turns around, caught in the excitement that fire brings to him. He pushes Chanyeol against the dirt of the floor and crashes his mouth against him. Chanyeol remembers that one picture he took of his friend with his creamy white outfit and opens his mouth, starved and anxious for the touch that only his partner can give him in this world infected by otherworldly creatures.

His hands and limbs multiplicate, becoming one being that would be oh, so fascinating to study. But no, the moment is for them and them only. The only other spectator would not live to tell the rest of his kind the magic that happened that night.

They fuck on the floor as a Oegyein burns to death on the background. The alien doesn’t scream, they never scream. The only grunts and tears and laughter comes from the most lucky humans alive. Which might not be a lot to say given that they are the _only_ lovers left alive.

**iv A day in the life**

‘’It will be easy!’’

‘’Please, Chanyeol, explain to me exactly _how_ this is going to be easy.’’

‘’It was easy when I brought you.’’

‘’I am a murderer. Why would you even bring this kid here? Do you want to train him to become an assassin like us? Or will you tell him a story about the ghostbusters and sugarcoat everything for him? I can’t believe you brought a kid here.’’

‘’What was I supposed to do? I find a human for the first time in five years and I’m expected to leave him to die? Look at him!’’ Chanyeol raises the kid he had found- Jongin. ‘’He is not older than three and his parents have to be dead. We need to take care of him.’’

The little kid stands between them, back on the floor with large eyes and big, pouty lips, imploring and calling for that part of human adults that want nothing more than to protect a face like that.

‘’I don’t want to see any other member of my family die,’’ His boyfriend explains, looking sadder than what he has in months. ‘’They are going to kill us all,’’ he lets out, his voice cracking.

‘’Apa…’’ Jongin whines, looking at Baekhyun and making grabby hands. Baekhyun ends up picking him up and crying for a few long minutes.

In the end everything is okay, Baekhyun comes up with a plan. 

He can appeal to the political side of the monsters and they can use the three of them for their agenda. They would become a family that Oegyein could use to show their humanitarian (Oegyeintarian?) side to everyone opposing the genocide of humans. Chaenyeol and Baekhyun would allow them to market them as the good humans as a contrast with the bad humans, the ones that don’t deserve to live.

‘’I guess we are parents now,’’ Baekhyun states, hugging Jongin as if he had never been hugged before, laughing in between tears and most likely finding out that he needed this even more than the kid does.

Jongin looks back and smiles at Chanyeol. They had planned this, but Baekhyun doesn’t need to know.

  
  
  


**vi Escaping day: Do not forget to bring socks**

  
  
  


‘’Please don’t forget to bring Jongin’s socks.’’

Throughout his whole life, Chanyeol has been collecting humans, people he can have a real connection with. Baekhyun wants more than just individual satisfaction, more than just the warmth of a human by his side in bed and a little human to hold, hug and protect.

Baekhyun decides to escape and Chanyeol agrees almost immediately. They are going to get out of this morbid town and found the humans that for sure must be living out there. 

More than just a little family, they will form an entire community, and with time they will reach a number of people capable of opposing a real resistance to the regime. With time, everything will change for them.

‘’Isn’t he old enough to pack his own socks?’’

  
  
  


**ii The day love surrounded them and yet they chose to say nothing : The photograph**

  
  
  


‘’Yeolie,’’ Baekhyun sing songs as he enters the house.

‘’I’ve told you it is mandatory to take your shoes off before coming into the house,’’ Chanyeol nags him without even having to look back. He knows enough just by hearing the steps.

There isn’t really a reason to maintain the etiquette, it is just them in an alien world that works very differently from everything they were used to. Except that there is a reason. Humankind will live as long as there is someone out there reproducing the culture. They eat in silence, don’t wear shoes inside the house, say good morning and good night because it gives them a sense of belonging.

Truth is, they belong to each other.

‘’Buy Yeolie~ you have to look at me first.’’

‘’I don’t have to do anything,’’ Chanyeol mumbles.

‘’Come on, I want to show you the clothes I found, they are clean and everything.’’

Words are scarce as Chanyeol turns around, for there are no words to describe how his partner looks in the creamy white outfit, poorly kept bleached hair and his mannerisms that make him look like someone that would belong in royalty.

Chanyeol takes the barely working polaroid that he keeps hidden even though he knows there’s no one there to rob him.

_Click._ And then a mechanical sound. Baekhyun’s beauty has been imprinted on a photograph forever.

‘’Can I see? I must look like a god with the face you are making.’’

In a different life Chanyeol would have blushed. He would’ve tried to deny the face and the blushing and the warmth growing and expanding from his stomach to his every nerve. In this life, there is no time to lose for they might die any second now. The best time to say the truth is always the present moment, and so Chanyeol opens his mouth to tell Baekhyun what he feels.

But…

There he stands, in the godly beauty that he had joked about. His tongue suddenly feels heavy and sandy in his mouth. 

‘’You look dead. Are you okay?’’

‘’Yeah, it’s just that…’’

‘’Tell me.’’

‘’Nah, it’s nothing, don’t worry. Just go set the table, we are going to eat.’’

One day he will do it. But right now he can’t let his feelings get the best out of him. He can’t afford to lose this warmth. He can’t afford to lose this person. He can’t afford to lose the love of his life.

  
  



End file.
